Suspect allegedly linked to Baku shooting detained

A suspect allegedly linked to a shooting in Baku Oil Academy on Thursday, in which 13 were killed and another 13 injured has been charged with criminal complicity.

Georgian national Nadir Shirkhan oglu Aliev was arrested on Saturday.

According to the spokesperson for the Prosecutor General’s office Eldar Sultanov, he comes from the same village as Fyarda Gadirov, also a Georgian passport holder, who is said to have opened fire in the academy and then committed suicide at the scene.

Sultanov also said the men knew each other and were friends. Aliev says he was acquainted with the gunman but he was not on friendly terms with him.

Investigators have two versions as to the motives for the crime. One says the 29-year-old gunman previously studied at the academy but was dismissed for having a bad record. According to the other, the institution was a random choice.

On Friday, around 200 students gathered outside the Oil Academy to commemorate the victims of Thursday’s massacre, Interfax reports. They were holding Azerbaijani flags and crying the slogan “No to terrorism!”

The participants of the rally intended to march to the capital’s central square Azadlyg, but police did not allow them to do so.

Nevertheless, students marched a short way from the academy’s central building to the one where the shooting took place on Thursday.